Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff

Hawaii's Legislature found that state and federal governments owned nearly half the state's land while just seventy-two private landowners held another forty-seven percent, inflating land prices and harming the public; it passed the Land Reform Act of 1967 to condemn land from those lessors and redistribute it to their existing lessees, with just compensation funded entirely by the lessees themselves. Rather than accept compensation under the Act, Midkiff and other landowners (plaintiffs) sued, and the Ninth Circuit found the Act violated the Fifth Amendment's public-use requirement; the Hawaii Housing Authority (defendant) appealed.